Friday, November 21, 2014

Christmas Book Advent

Try a CHRISTmas Book Advent

using books that teach your children

about the birth of Jesus!

Shared with permission

Christmas Book Advent

This a post from last year. I figured there's probably more than one
of you out there who, like me, remembers all about wanting to do this, after
the first of December. When it's too late. So here's your reminder to
hit up the thrift stores for some Christmas books - you still have
nearly two weeks to get it all dialed in. :) I dug ours out of the
Christmas bins in the attic, and will be wrapping them up over the
weekend to get them ready. Now to find those dang numbers.....

I am sooo excited to do this with the kids this year. I've seen the
Christmas book advents in blogland over the last few years and every
year, I say I'm gonna do it. Then the first of December comes and goes
and I've blown it. Not this year!

The kids already had quite a few Christmas books. They've received them
over the years from neighbors and friends. But I still needed more,
and there was no way we could afford to get them at a bookstore. Those
suckers are at least $15 bucks a pop right now.

So I hit up Goodwill. You guys, they had three entire shelves full of
Christmas books. It was like winning the lottery. I got all giddy when
I saw them. Then I proceeded to plop down on the floor, yes in
Goodwill, and scan through every single one of them. I bought one that
was $2.99 and one that was $1.99, but the rest were .99 cents!!! Deal
of the day. And they're nice books. A couple of them are paperback,
but most of the ones I brought home are hardcover books. So awesome.

So I wrapped them all up, (yeah, that part took a minute), numbered them
from 24 to 1 on a brown paper bag cut into circles with a Sharpie,
('Twas The Night Before Christmas will be read on Christmas Eve, of
course), put them in a basket I already had, and voila. Christmas Book
Advent.

Did I mention I'm excited? I was thinking about the kids being older,
and having favorites, and looking forward to opening them, and trying to
guess which one is the one they love them most. Eeeeeee. So fun.

As I was wrapping them, I was thinking, there's no reason you'd have to
do Christmas books. If your house is like ours, you have books coming
out your ears. Between the three kids, we have a ton of books, and there
are some we haven't read in a long time. You could just pick 24 and
wrap them up. Make old books new again! No frenzied trip to every
thrift shop in town, looking for ONE MORE CHRISTMAS BOOK. You don't
even have to leave the house. And you can read books every night under
the tree with the kids. I can't wait.

I brought the basket down from the attic and we'll read our first one tonight.